On the heat. All four heats

Ingredients

• 800 g lamb mince, regular
• 1 onion, grated and squeezed dry
• 2 tbsp ginger–garlic paste
• 2 tsp roasted ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• ½ tsp garam masala
• Chilli to your heat: ½ tsp mild · 1½ medium · 2½ hot · 4 extra hot
• 2 tbsp chickpea flour, toasted in a dry pan
• Coriander and mint, chopped
• 1½ tsp salt
• Flat metal skewers — not round

Method

1. Squeeze the grated onion in a cloth until it gives no more water. This one step is the difference between a kebab that holds and one that falls in the fire.
2. Mix everything and then knead it for four full minutes until it turns sticky and slightly pale. You are working the protein, not just combining.
3. Cover and chill one hour minimum. Warm mince will not grip a skewer.
4. Wet your hands. Take a fistful, close it around the flat skewer, and draw your hand down its length twice to leave a 20 cm sleeve about 3 cm thick. Press ridges in with your fingers — they catch the fire.
5. Hot coals, skewers resting on the rails so the meat hangs clear of the grid. Do not turn for three minutes. It needs to set before it moves.
6. Turn once, three minutes more. Slide off with a piece of flatbread.

Cook's note. UK note. Under a domestic grill, lay the skewers across a roasting tin so the meat hangs free, top shelf, 6 minutes a side. For chilli, a hot South African chilli is roughly a bird's eye; Kashmiri gives the colour without the heat.

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